There are certain moments that stand out as singular pieces of good fortune.
The day I first visited Wetsus and met Prof. Cees Buisman, Director of Wetsus, European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, being a case in point. I have my good friend Steve Kloos, to thank for that connection.
Steve, who was leading Innovation in GE Water at the time, gushed with his characteristic enthusiasm, “You haven’t heard of Wetsus? Paul, you gotta go, it’s awesome. It’s one of the top water research centres in the world and they have this cool water technology incubator, in an old Dutch church!”.
With no further encouragement needed, I hopped on a plane, caught a train and headed on a voyage of discovery to Leeuwarden, where I was greeted and shown around the labs, which I remember at the time, feeling like those scenes from James Bond, where the Scientist M, is showing off newfangled gadgets and inventions. There was such a kaleidoscopic cornucopia of innovations and multi-disciplinary cross collaboration, it was a lot to take in.
Were it not for that connection with Cees Buisman, I would never have completed a PhD on water innovation, and adapted the work into the book ‘The Dynamics of Water Innovation – a guide to water technology commercialisation’ with my co-author and constant collaborator Lakshmi Manjoosha Adapa, PhD MBA, which we launched at European Water Technology Week this week.
It began, like all PhD’s, with an expedition into the unknown, with mountains to climb, and at the top of every peak, we could see the next hill. We started the expedition by building a basecamp, the Water Technology Adoption (WaTA) model, that established standard timelines for water technology commercialisation and ended with classifying impacts into unicorns, lions and horses, based on innovation drivers, such as Crisis and Value driven, the type of innovation and looking at the horizon for new innovation ideas.
The impact of the serendipity of that first visit to Wetsus didn’t stop with a PhD and a book however. When I had completed our first Brave Blue World Foundation water documentary film, and was beginning the brainstorming process for what might be next, Aoife Kelleher and I called Cees, who with his characteristic Dutch directness, told me he really didn’t like our first film very much! And proceeded to share the idea that we should make a film about rivers. Cees introduced me to Li An Phoa, Drinkable Rivers and from a first meeting in November 2021 the relationship developed and Li An went on to become one of the inspiring heroes in the Our Blue World film, which we shared with attendees at European Water Technology Week last night. Lovely to bring it all full circle!
So if there is a moral in this tale, it would be that when a friend gives you good advice, it’s probably wise to take it. And to remember to say thank you. (-:
For anyone interested in learning more about the book, visit the website: braveblue.world/book
